Future Educator

7/31/2019 Future Educator

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In a world experiencing exponentialchange, schools will need to prepare stu-dents for the dynamically new environmentthey will face upon graduation. By contin-uing to focus on the short term prepar-ing kids for the next unit, the next semester,or the next grade we fail to recognize thatour current system is becoming obsolete.

The key to successfully changing the sys-tem is to have a clear goal in mind. How do we determine what our goal should be, par-ticularly in light of the rapidly changingmodern world? To begin, we should neverlimit our focus by only looking at whatshot today. In times of exponential change, we cant base decisions on what exists in thepresent. The world is changing, and our

mandate is to prepare students for their livesin the future. We must look at education the same way

a quarterback looks at the football field. We

Education and theRole of the Educatorin the Future

The world is changing, and ourmandate is to prepare studentsfor their lives in the future.

By Ian Jukes,Ted McCain, andLee Crockett

Technology

kappanmagazine.org V92 N4 Kappan 15

IAN JUKES is director of InfoSavvy Group, Kelowna,B.C. TED MCCAIN is the associate director of the

Thornburg Center for Professional Development, LakeBarrington, Ill. LEE CROCKETT is director of mediafor InfoSavvy Group and the managing partner of the21st-Century Fluency Project. 21st-Century Flu-ency Project, 2010.

This article isexcerpted fromLiving on the FutureEdge: Windows onTomorrow , by IanJukes, Ted McCain,and Lee Crockett(Corwin Press,2010).

T h i n k s t o c k / i S t o c k p h o t o


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must perceive where things are headed so we can re-spond appropriately. We must accept that we have aparadigm for how we expect life to unfold; that intimes of radical change, we all suffer from some de-gree of paradigm paralysis; and that change requiresus to let go of ideas and ways of doing things that wehold dear. Keep this in mind as we outline the future

goals for education. We envision a shift from text-

books, brick-and-mortar classrooms, lectures, work-sheets, standardized tests, bells in fact, everything we grew up expecting of school to learning when-ever and wherever it can best happen.

A shift of this magnitude will force teachers to ex-amine their role in student learning. Without a doubt,how educators do their daily tasks will change. Wemust identify the broader roles that will endure asthe world continues to change dramatically. Theessence of what educators must do in the future isthe very same as its always been: to help studentslearn the relevant skills, knowledge, attitudes, attrib-utes, and behaviors that theyll need to be good andproductive citizens, parents, and workers.

As we outline the goals of education in the 21stcentury, lets also consider some of the new functionsand responsibilities of teachers.

CUSTOMIZE LEARNING FOR THE LEARNER

Young children learn intuitively. Learning inschool, however, is quite a different matter. The prob-lem is that the school system is designed for handlinglarge numbers of young people rather than individualstudents. Our entire educational system is createdaround a 30:1 approach to instruction, which neces-sitates teaching to a group rather than teaching to in-dividuals. Students are grouped by classes, grades, andgeography. This has a real cost in terms of meetingthe needs of all of the students in any of these groups. A typical group of 30 students has a wide range of abil-ities, interests, maturity, and learning styles, and forthe sheer sanity of the teacher, he or she must teachto the middle in terms of student ability.

The major casualty in this approach is engage-ment for the individual student. This is a problem of immense proportions; any teacher will tell you thatengagement is the key ingredient to real learning.By not addressing the individual abilities and inter-

ests of each student, weve created an educationalsystem that works against the ultimate goal of fos-tering a love for learning in each student. In fact, thedesign of the current system goes against what weknow about learning from brain research. John Med-ina has this to say in his book, Brain Rules :

Every students brain . . . is wired differently. Thatsthe Brain Rule. You can either accede to it or ignoreit. The current system of education chooses the lat-ter, to our detriment. It needs to be torn down andnewly envisioned, in a Manhattan Project-size com-mitment to individualizing instruction. We might,among other things, dismantle altogether gradestructures based on age. (Medina 2008: 69)

Technology will empower individual students tomaster course material at their own pace. With in-dividualized instruction, the delivery of course con-tent can be adjusted to the individual abilities of thestudent. When this occurs, the focus of schooling will shift away from achievement based on age andgrade level to the mastery of content and skills.

LEARNING IS BOTH VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL

Technology has already made virtual relation-ships part of our lives. As virtual worlds become morerealistic, theyll blur the lines between real life and virtual reality. Virtual communication with peoplefrom around the world will approach the ease of real- world communications.

This will have profound implications for educa-tion. Teachers and students will no longer have to be

in the same place for learning to occur. Furthermore,the quality of the virtual interaction between teacherand student will be sufficiently natural so that the com-munication wont suffer simply because theyre notface to face. The advantages of this kind of interac-tion will make its use compelling in the near future.

Technology will also empower students to accom-plish learning when and where its convenient orpractical for a particular student. The staggeringgrowth in the capabilities of technology and wirelesscommunication to handle all types of informationhave huge implications for where learning will takeplace. No longer will education be confined to schoolbuildings. It will take place in parks, on buses, onboats, in museums, on football fields, at the oceanshore, and so on. Learning will take place almost any- where the student has a teachable moment, whichmakes learning more relevant.

Students will still be able to meet, discuss, play basketball, and interact with others in smaller, com-munity-based schools that are close to their homes;but the need for a large school building with all itsresources will be greatly diminished due to access to virtual learning resources.

16 Kappan December 2010/January 2011 kappanmagazine.org

We envision a shift from textbooks, brick-and-mortar classrooms, lectures, worksheets,

standardized tests, bells in fact, everything wegrew up expecting of school to learning whenever

and wherever it can best happen.


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LEARNING IS NONLINEAR

New technologies will also keep track of individ-ual progress through established educational mile-stones in a nonlinear fashion. This is impractical inthe current education system where students aretaught concepts in a unit-by-unit sequence, year af-ter year.

Real learning often follows a nonlinear path thatdevelops as cognitive links are formed. For example,a 6th-grade student may become interested in rock-ets and pursue the topic further, exploring ideas fromthe 8th- or 10th-grade science curriculum. The won-derful thing about this kind of learning is that, be-cause interest drives the learning, it will be morecomplete and long lasting than if the student hadbeen forced to consider 6th-grade science conceptsbefore 7th- and 8th-grade science, each separated by a calendar year. This kind of learning spawns engage-ment because it allows students to follow sponta-neous ideas and interests. David Thornburg cap-tured the power of this kind of learning:

Technology allows learners to move through con-ceptual space at the speed of thought. (1993)

In the current system, its impossible to keep track of an individuals progress when learning proceedsthis way. However, exponential growth inthe power of technology will soon pro-duce intelligent technology that can eas-ily keep track of the path these concep-tual links follow for each individual stu-

dent. How is this possible? Amazon.com,for instance, uses a technology called Sys-tem for Managing Agents in Real Time(SMART Agents), which learns about apersons interests from their purchasinghistory and then makes suggestions for what he or she might be interested innext. Intelligent tracking software wouldguide students as they develop cognitivelinks. Intelligent tracking software willidentify instructional holes and remindstudents of curricular goals that have not yet been met and suggest learning expe-riences that will cover the required coursecontent.

The Educators Role: Facilitator. The ed-ucators role in nonlinear learning is to bea facilitator, or a guide, rather than aclassroom manager. He or she must cre-ate an engaging methodology that com-pels students to want to learn. Educatorsmust show students how to follow thetrails to learning for themselves or howto blaze their own trails. They must en-

courage students to go in different directions fromthe traditional beaten paths learners have always fol-lowed.

LEARNING WITH THINKING MACHINES

Up until now, technological tools have been usedfor searching, retrieving, viewing, organizing, calcu-

lating, and editing information. Although these pow-erful tools assist with many tasks that would normally be beyond human capabilities, their use has beenguided by direct human involvement. High-levelthinking and the decision-making process have re-mained exclusively human tasks.

A new era of intelligent machines has finally be-gun. In his book, The Extreme Future , James Cantonmakes the following statement regarding the grow-ing power of machines:

With decreased costs of computer chips and vast,exponential increases in processing power, all prod-

ucts in the future will have the capacity to think.Products will be connected and sense, talk, interact,and make decisions with humans and for humans.(2006: 256)

In the future, students will interact with SMARTtutors that will assist them with skill development inmathematics and reading. Web sites will run intelli-


For more

information,

visit www.

21stcentury

fluency.com.


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gent software that presents learning material in a va-riety of formats, responds to student questions, andtailors instruction to the individual learning style of a particular student. Face-recognition software willautomatically provide an individual student withcomplete knowledge of his or her learning history and preferences. Interacting with this intelligent

software either online or embodied in a robot or car will become as natural as interacting with humanteachers.

Until now, the demands of teaching lower-levelskills eat up so much time and effort that its very dif-ficult for teachers to make room for teaching higher-level process skills. Thinking machines can offerteachers some real hope for changing this. Someteachers, especially those who have been teaching fora long time, may find the next few years challenging,but the benefits are well worth it. The appropriateuse of technological tools will allow teachers to fo-cus their time on teaching higher-level skills.

LEARNING IS FOCUSED ON MULTIMEDIA

In his book, Mind Set!, John Naisbitt makes a very simple statement that has huge significance for ed-ucators:

A visual culture is taking over the world. (2006: 113)

His statement is startling. While there are sub-stantial reasons for continuing to teach students toread, write, and process words, our connection withthe daily reality of the modern world is tenuous be-

cause we have not embraced the growing visual cul-ture that students, parents, consumers, and business-people experience through print and electronic me-dia. Audiovisual communication through a variety of media has become the norm. Equipping students with the skills to process multimedia messages will very soon become imperative.

Education will focus on two sets of multimedia in-formation processing skills. The first set of skills willbe concerned with how a student receives and de-codes messages sent in a wide range of media. Canthe student see the real message being communi-cated? Is there bias in the information being pre-sented? The second set of skills involves the commu-nication of messages by the student using variousmultimedia formats. Students are not only consumersof information in the modern world, theyre also pro-ducers and publishers of information. Students willneed to learn how various media can be manipulatedto better communicate what they want to say.

The Educators Role: User and Advocate of Technol-ogy. Teachers must become advocates for getting cur-rent technology into their classrooms so that all stu-dents can benefit. Instead of banning digital devices,

1:1 computing should be encouraged. This isntabout being progressive. Its about having a digi-tal network culture where using digital tools is thenew reality of both business and personal life. A young person simply cant leave school without rel-evant technology skills and expect to succeed in mod-ern life.

LEARNING IS COLLABORATIVE

Collaboration is essential for individuals, work-ers, and companies. Individuals collaborate in net- worked games to accomplish tasks, students fromdifferent parts of the world are beginning to coop-erate on projects for school, workers routinely co-operate with coworkers using a variety of onlinetools, and even businesses that compete with one an-other are discovering that working together is thebest strategy for success.

Students must acquire collaboration skills if theyre to succeed in life and the modern workplace.Students will have to become at ease working with virtual partners and functioning in workgroups sep-arated by time and distance. Collaboration will alsobecome an essential element of instruction. New on-line tools and SMART tutors will allow experts in various fields to virtually enter the school environ-ment to meet with students and assist teachers withcourse content. The responsibility for instruction will become shared between educators and the com-munity.

The Educators Role: Lifelong Learner.Educatorsare beginning to understand that they must transi-

tion from teaching students to learning with studentsand even to learning from students. Transformingour professional practices to include continual learn-ing is a powerful teaching strategy that enables ed-ucators to maintain relevance by becoming excellentrole models, learning guides, process instructors,and futurists.

As educators in the new millennium, we must seeourselves as members of a learning organization thatdevelops, adapts, and transforms itself in response tothe needs and aspirations of people it connects with.Learning makes the organization stronger and keepsit relevant. One cant be static in such an organiza-tion. For many teachers, this will mean realizingthere is a big difference between teaching for 15 yearsand teaching one year 15 times.

LEARNING IS WHOLE MIND

Brain research has also discovered that the high-level thought required to solve complex problems always involves both sides of the brain working in con-cert. Traditionally, school has focused on activitiesthat exercise the left side of the brain reading, writing, arithmetic, and logical analysis. This ap-



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proach served people well in the late Industrial Ageof the 20th century; however, the emergence of theInformation Age has changed the kinds of skills thatpeople need for success in the world.

This new age of automation and outsourcing re-quires higher-level thinking skills. Being able toprocess information to see patterns, make connec-

tions, determine meaning, and see the big picture areright-brain tasks. While students must develop left-brain skills in reading, writing, arithmetic, and log-ical analysis, they must also develop right-brain skillsin information processing and problem solving.Daniel Pink captured the significance of this shift inhis book, A Whole New Mind :

In a world tossed by Abundance, Asia, and Automa-tion, in which left-brain-directed thinking remainsnecessary but no longer sufficient. . . . We must per-form work that overseas knowledge workers cantdo cheaper, that computers cant do faster, and thatsatisfies the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual de-mands of a prosperous time. (2006, p. 61)

LEARNING IS BASED ON DISCOVERY

Teachers talk, students listen repeatedly, day inand day out. Students cram for tests and try to tem-porarily memorize as much of the content as they can to get a good grade. This is the essential para-digm of 20th-century education. Unfortunately, thegrim reality is that most students have forgotten thecontent they memorized within 48 hours after thetest. Worse yet, students dont develop skills that will

be useful to them outside the walls of school. Mostteachers would prefer to delve deeper into the ma-

terial in their courses, but the limits of time to ful-fill all standard requirements prevent them from ex-ploring alternative methods of instruction.

Lets consider that young people already partici-pate in discovery learning. They just dont do it inschool. It happens as they search the Internet for in-formation on topics that interest them. Theyre get-

ting online guitar lessons, searching Google for ad-

vice on how to fix a mountain bike, learning how toalter images in Photoshop through YouTube, and in- vestigating what to do about acne from WebMD. Theyre discovering all kinds of things about the world around them just not the kinds of thingsthey encounter at school.

Thanks to the exponential growth in technolog-ical power, learning will shift from secondhand ex-periences through lectures and books to firsthanddiscovery experiences. Online environments withSMART Agents will share multimedia information with students in natural interactions involving voice,facial expression, and body language. Simulations will empower students to discover how the worldaround them works through amazingly realistic vir-tual experiences of the microscopic, outer space, and

everything in between. History will come alive withre-creations of important events, battles, speeches,


We must recognize that the current education systemhas been set up to prepare students perfectly for a worldthat no longer exists.

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I made the decision to do all teacher appraisals and walk-throughs, (110+),myself this past year. Thanks to the training I received from TBC, I was ableto spend many hours in classrooms and in productive coaching conversationswith staff members every week. Our school, overwhelmingly populated by economically disadvantaged students, received state recognition for programsimplemented as a direct result of my coaching from the classroom level,rather than from behind my desk. Lisa Kersh, Principal, Plainview High School, Plainview, TX

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and so on. Students will have access to informationsources that will allow them to experience currentevents firsthand. The focus of teachers will shift tocreating learning tasks that challenge students to develop higher-level thinking skills through discovery.

LEARNING IS PROBLEM-BASED

The traditional approach to instruction focuseson content delivery. A great challenge teachers faceis how to deliver the content in a course curriculum while creating engagement in the learning activitiesand providing relevance which is essential forlong-term learning to occur. Teachers will have touse right-brain thinking activities as vehicles for in-struction. For example, a science class could usepaintings to illustrate concepts in chemistry. Thesekinds of tasks not only address course content, butthey also help students develop the whole-mindthinking skills they will need for future success.

The Educators Role: Crafter of Problems. Teachersneed to take academic material and craft problemsthat will lead students into the required content while developing high-level thinking skills to solvethe problem. Such problem-based tasks must also beappropriate for the intellectual and social develop-ment of students. To ensure that the task producesthe engagement and relevance necessary for effec-tive learning, the problem should have a link to the world outside school. Constructing these tasks re-quires a bit of skill and involves a number of factors. Training in problem-based instruction needs to be apriority for teachers, especially those who have been

using a content-driven approach for a long time.EVALUATION IS HOLISTIC

Assessment is about getting a picture of a studentslearning. The main evaluative tool used by the schoolsystem for measuring performance is the written test:multiple-choice questions, essays, and written re-ports. These tools provide a snapshot of what a stu-dent knows about specific details on a certain topic. The question is, do these tools give a complete andaccurate picture of student learning? The answer isno; written tests predominantly reflect only mem-ory and the regurgitation of content.

To understand the limited scope of written tests,lets think about how the motor vehicle departmentdecides whether a person has learned enough to beallowed to drive a car on public roads. A multiple-choice test assesses whether student drivers havelearned the rules of the road and some basic conceptsof speed and braking. Upon passing the test, a stu-dent is granted a learners permit to practice drivinga car. The final evaluation is done by an examiner who rides along with the student driver to gauge thelevel of driving skill as the student performs various

driving tasks. Although the aptitude test is one partof the evaluation, it cant measure the true level of astudents actual driving skills.

Clearly, written tests play only a small part in eval-uation. They cant measure all of the skills developedin drawing pictures, playing an instrument, refutingan argument in a debate, playing basketball, and a

whole host of other activities.Because of the increasingly disposable nature of information, the importance of memorizing specificcontent will decrease. Instead, students must learnto apply processes for writing, researching, andproblem solving in order to accomplish tasks. To suc-ceed in the modern world, students must be able to:

Determine the relative importance of variouspieces of information that may becontradictory or incomplete, then makepersonal evaluations of that information to

develop informed opinions; Articulate informed opinions through writing,presentations, debates, and various multimediacommunications;

Use imagination to produce creativeexpressions of ideas and feelings through story,poetry, music, visual art, and performing art;and

Combine technical skill and creativity to cook a meal, build a desk, perform an experiment,and so on.

These are just a few examples of the skills students will need. Real learning encompasses social skill development and the consideration of others. We mustembrace other forms of evaluation or develop newones if we hope to get a complete picture of studentlearning.

The Educators Role: Holistic Evaluator.It is vital thatteachers become holistic evaluators. All facets of learning must be esteemed in assessment. We shouldconsider portfolios of student work, live perform-ances, and other demonstrations of creativity andcompetency when were choosing assessment tools.Educators will provide feedback so students can im-prove their performance. Students need timely, tar-geted, nonjudgmental feedback and opportunities tomake mistakes as they learn and not be penalized forthem. They also need authentic audiences in a vari-ety of settings and contexts in which to demonstrate what they can do. Most of all, students need the en-couragement to try things with all kinds of tools,technologies, and techniques to create various prod-ucts that reflect their understanding of concepts.

As sophisticated software takes over summativeassessments, teachers will have time to use evalua-


The

appropriate

use of

technological

tools willallow

teachers to

focus their

time on the

teaching of

higher-level

skills.


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tive tools that are currently underused or not usedat all. This will be an essential shift because many of the skills and attributes of people who will be suc-cessful in the future arent easily measured by writ-ten tests.

NEW MODELS FOR TEACHER TRAINING

It will take more than a few professional days de- voted to technology use or problem-based learningto prepare teachers for their new roles. Teachersmust make a fundamental shift in their paradigm forteaching and learning. We must recognize that thecurrent education system has been set up to preparestudents perfectly for a world that no longer exists. Massive, ongoing retraining for educators is essen-tial if schools are to be made relevant to the modernneeds of all students.

Despite the perception of much of the public andthe media, teaching is a difficult, challenging, stress-ful job. Teachers are asked to do a great number of things beyond teaching. The kinds of changes weresuggesting here will never happen within the currentmodel of professional development for teachers.

Many companies have recognized that to be truly effective in reeducating their workforce, they haveto remove their workers from their regular work for


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FutureEducators ASSOCIATION

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2011 PDK Conference on Innovations in Teaching and LearningFebruary 17-18, 2011 Atlanta, Georgiawww.pdkconference.org

Photo: AVCB

extended periods of time so they can focus on thetask of learning. Many companies have built train-ing centers and have a significant portion of their workers attending retraining classes on an ongoingbasis.

Schools will have to do the same. Retraining willrequire regular classes for teachers for which they

are released from their regular teaching duties. If we want to see the kinds of changes necessary to bringschools in line with the new reality, then we have nooption but to radically reprioritize and restructureprofessional development for teachers. K

REFERENCES

Canton, James. The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will

Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years . New

York: Penguin, 2006.

Medina, John. Brain Rules . Seattle, Wash.: Pear Press, 2008.

Naisbitt, John. Mind Set! New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind . New York: Berkley, 2006.

Thornburg, David D. Surfing Through Cyberspace: Education

at the Edge of Time . CD-ROM. San Carlos, Calif.: Thornburg

Center for Professional Development, 1993.


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